Advance voting in the Federal Election begins today and, astonishingly, none of the parties has yet published their election platforms. 

Another convention thrown overboard.

Nevertheless, I shall be voting Liberal because of the existential threat facing the nation. Donald Trump is a dose of anthrax to Canada.

Deranged

I am not a member of the Liberal Party and never have been.

But I believe the centrist Liberals are best placed to keep the deranged Trump at bay. I am not going to split the vote and let Pierre Poilievre sail through the middle.

The Liberals have a leader who – as a former central banker - appeals to Conservatives. They see him as the man with the credentials. He is careful with money and has the quiet demeanor and rectitude to do the job.

He was appointed by former Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper as Governor of the Bank of Canada and by the Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, as Governor of the Bank of England.

Tighten

Last night’s debate didn’t change anything. The election will “tighten” as the pollsters say but that always happens as voting intentions harden as we get closer to polling day.

Importantly, Mark Carney is not Justin Trudeau and he takes pains to underline that fact – as he did last night.

Trudeau’s sunny ways darkened over his ten years as PM.

It is impossible not to disappoint people over a decade. I have my own personal list of disappointments; others will have their own. 

He promised electoral reform straight out of the gate in 2015 and it was quietly shelved. 

Triangulation

After the worst gun massacre in Canadian history at Portapique when 22 people were brutally slaughtered Trudeau equivocated on whether or not to ban handguns. It didn’t happen. We got, as usual, Clintonesque triangulation.

Then there were the controversies over indigenous peoples, the trans-mountain pipeline and everything in-between. 

Trudeau’s former Finance Minister, Bill Morneau, said the longest meeting he ever had one-to-one with the Prime Minster was the one arranged on his resignation from the Government.

His valedictory book “Where To From Here: A Path to Canadian Prosperity”  is full of interesting revelations.

Dilettante

Trudeau, a dilettante, was more interested in polling numbers than economic policy and left Morneau to get on with it.

When our former Liberal MP in Newmarket Aurora, the bland banker, Tony Van Bynen, said it was time for Trudeau to go, I knew the game was up.

Trudeau spent all his energies clinging on to office when everyone knew it was time for him to go.

And now we have Mark Carney, steady at the wheel.

He says he is interested in policy outcomes, not the performative aspects of the job of PM that Trudeau revelled in.

We shall see soon enough.

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Graphic below from Smart Voting.